I am new to this community, and I joined mainly because I thought fairly poorly of my play skills being that I am in mostly Diamond Leagues, but yet I have bad macro and micro skills compared to others in my high leagues, but I am VERY experienced. I've been playing Starcraft ever since the first game hit the stores in 1998! I used to be a very heavy melee player back in the day, but for about 8 or so years I had stopped playing melee and lost most of my skill. This does not mean I still don't know how to play :).

I got back into melee when Starcraft 2 came out! I wanted to get my edge back and get back into the game. I bought the game as soon as it came out in stores and I was excited! It was almost like I was diving into a whole new world of Starcraft all over again. I started off in the low bronze leagues and I fought my way up the ranks and leagues using my own build orders and strategies. I absolutely loved it!

There was no standard yet and all these new build orders and strategies were being developed, and it was just an interesting time. Now the game has matured, standard build orders are out, and I was late to learn them. I was still fighting my way through the Platinum leagues using my own build orders, but alas, they only got me so far. I had to start trying new things when I reached the top of my division. I some how luckily won enough games to reach the low end Diamond Leagues!

Once I hit Diamond, it was a whole new world for me. I was getting smashed right and left and facing unit compositions and build orders that I was just not ready for! I went from winning 60% of my games to winning just 50% or even that. Now I sit at the mid-level Diamond Leagues struggling to learn new builds, tactics, strategies and improving my micro and macro skills to rise to the top of my division and reign supreme.

I wish I had found a community earlier to find some one to help me improve my game! I had to learn everything on my own from Bronze to Diamond! So if you are like me and looking for all the help you can get and for some one you can turn to when you need some training and improvement or to just talk Starcraft 2 Theory, then I am here for you! I feel your pain, I know what you've been through. I was there once! Feel free to come find me.

SC2 name: Fealorin.945

10-19-2010 07:01 PM

Moderas

I have a question for you. What zerg build do you hate playing against the most? I assume it is Sling/Bling/Muta+ some infestors if you go bio, but im curious to see what Terran in general have trouble with to improve my ZvT play :D

10-19-2010 07:19 PM

Fealorin

Zerg builds that give me the most trouble are anything with infestors, since I do mostly mass bio. Zling Bling Muta doesn't give me much trouble anymore since I know how to micro my marines and marauders to minimize casualties, but throw infestors with fungal growth into the mix and I'm a sitting duck :). Hope this helps.

10-19-2010 07:43 PM

Flamga

welcome!

well that sounds rather interesting with that, however ive been playing with infestors the past few weeks (only festors and hydras lol) would you use to counter said infestors if you have a bioball? as ive seen may people go bioball then get tank siege support and that gets annoying lol. Ideally im working on just having lots of stuff but it seems as soon as sieges come into the mix everything just gets annihilated, moreso on maps with cliffs the tanks can shoot up (due to medivacs)

what advice would you give to zerg though facing a terran, i.e. like anything to watch for on first scout, getting that FE up or just an idea to try? probably better asking someone who plays the race you wanna beat :P

10-19-2010 08:18 PM

Fealorin

Honestly, I think infestors are the perfect counter to just about anything that Terran can throw at you! I have lost many games to zerg players who use their infestors very well. Fungal growth with a zling bling ball is absolutely devastating to a terran bio ball. Siege tanks are quite expensive units! 150/125. I can get 2 marauders as a much better deal! A single terran base has trouble supporting a constant 1 siege tank factory pump. His gas is stretched extremely thin if he only has one base. He will probably have lots of marines, a few marauders, and only a few medivacs. Siege tanks can't push ground alone vs Zerg or Protoss. If you are a zerg player against a Bioball with siege tanks, you might want to try throwing this combo at your terran opponent:

get a decent sized zling, bling, roach, infestor combo going and fungal growth his bio ball, then send in your zlings mixed with banelings, and make sure you spread your banelings out so they don't all get taken out at once by splash from siege tanks. While your zling, bling combo is hurling at your opponent, have some burrowed roaches with tunneling run around behind the infantry and head right for his tanks! Unburrow, and unleash hell on his tanks.

If you want to get even more creative, get infestor tunneling, get burrow, get neural parasite, throw a mix of roaches, hydras, lings, banelings at his bioball while your infestors sneak to the tank line, and neural parasite his siege tanks. Taking out those siege tanks is your key to victory. Or you can keep some infestors behind your army to fungal growth his bio ball while the rest of your infestors tunnel below and pop up at his tank line and mass neural parasite his tanks and that massacre the remaining bioball army. Infestors are very powerful units against terran. Their abilities are absolutely devastating! Broodlords are another absolutely devastating unit in the zerg arsenal! If you mix even just a few Broodlords into your army while you hit his bioball with your ground force and bling ball, you can do a lot of damage.

If you can't stop your Terran opponent from getting siege tanks, then at least you can apply pressure and try to keep him from expanding whilst mass expanding yourself. Zerg's ability to macro and mass expand is incredible! Much stronger than terran's ability to expand and macro. As a Zerg player, you really want to take the economic advantage. Zerg is unstoppable with enough expansions. Zerg's strongest feature is it's economic and macro capabilities. You really want to make sure you have the economic advantage of your opponent. Try to deny him expanding as much as possible. If you see him expand early, ignore it, unless it's an orbital command center. Go expand yourself! If he expands, YOU expand too! Infact go for a double expansion! Trust me, zerg is very strong with mass expansion. Keep in mind though, that you need to find a delicate balance of when to expand and when to pressure.

Thanks mate that actually makes sense! lol yea thats true, I just seem to have this issue with tanks for some reason -_- lol will have a look at what you said. Well hope you have fun here :P i got some more testing to do >.<

10-20-2010 07:46 PM

Fealorin

You're welcome! I'm glad I can help.

I was thinking heavy about this and came to the conclusion that I think I rather spend 150 gas on a ghost than 125 on a tank if I am up against infestors. Ghosts have 100 HP, they do same damage to light armor that marauders do to armored, and they emp and snipe!! Snipe is absolutely deadly, it costs 25 energy for 45 damage at very long range! What a deal! Two hits from snipe can take out an infestor. Have cloaked ghosts and you wont see em unless you have detectors! What a deadly counter to infestors.

However, fear not! You will hardly ever see terran play with ghosts against zerg! Many terrans don't really know how to use ghosts effectively vs zerg. I think I am going to make Ghosts part of my playbook and use them as my signature unit!

So, let's take a look at Ghosts for a moment. They have 200 energy, emp, cloak, snipe, 10-20vs light, 6 range, 1.5 attack speed(same as a marauder) and they can nuke!! Snipe is a 25 energy skill dealing 45 damage per shot. 200/25 = 8shots x 45dmg = 360 dmg! 360 damage and it ignores armor! HOLY ****! How much HP does an ultralisk have? 500 HP. Brood lords? 300 HP? 1 Ghost with full energy can knock down a brood lord and still have some energy to cloak or make another snipe shot. They kill mutas in 3 shots, Ultralisks in 12 shots, infestors in 2 shots, and brood lords in 7 shots! Snipe also has a very low cooldown! A ghost when properly micro'ed can deal the full 360 damage in just a few seconds! Best of all ghosts can do this from a very safe distance! I believe the sniper distance is close to that of a siege tank.

Zerg players, watch out! You might start seeing more ghost play in the future if more people take a closer look at this. A massive bioball with a few unseen ghosts in the back can turn out to be quite a deadly force!

10-25-2010 07:38 PM

Fealorin

**hot** a big tip all newbies and pros alike should do **hot**

Hello everyone!

Fealorin here with an awesome tip to help improve your macro, you're micro, and increase your APM over all! Have you always had trouble remembering hot keys for all the different races and then getting hotkeys confused and mixed up and forgetting them for different races?? Well, be confused no more, forget no more, and finally have the hot keys so deep in your mind, it's as easy as breathing!

!!!YOU MUST READ THIS!!!

I was looking through the game options and menus and I stumbled across the Options Menu called HOT KEYS. In this menu, you can change your hot key profile from standard to GRID!
Grid hot keys assign your entire tool tip and hot key menu to the QWERT grid on your keyboard.
In other words:

Q W E R T
A S D F G
Z X C V B

These keys are all assigned like a grid to your hot key menu! No more memorizing hot keys for units! Everything is just a small finger movement away!

I hope this really helps a lot of people. If you are a pro and already have lots of experience in SC2 and know all the hot keys, then this may not be for you, but it's never too late to make the switch! Just as a warning, it will take some time to get used to again, but once you make the switch, you will be macroing and microing much better and your APM will be boosted because it will only take a split second to move your finger to press a button; as opposed to stretching your whole left hand across the keyboard to hit a hot key on the other side.

Good luck!

10-25-2010 10:22 PM

smagee

I've been curious what the different hotkey configurations actually were; from the way you describe it, it moves control groups from the numbers to the left-hand keys (assuming I read it correctly). If this is the case, does it also shift quick build keys (e.g., to make a drone, select Hatch and hit s+d)? That seems like it could make matters less convenient. Or am I misunderstanding the term "hot keys"?

10-25-2010 11:15 PM

Moderas

It changes shortcuts, not hotkeys. Meaning instead of T for stimpack you would hit Z or instead of C for corruption it would be Z. Something to note for Protoss players: This changes the standard hotkey for warpgates (W) to something else (I think G).